Leslie Rice wins $150,000 Doug Moran - Art Collector

24 July 2012 | Sydney painter Leslie Rice has won the $150,000 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, making him the only artist to have won the prize twice.

The prize, which has been running for 25 years, attracts a huge volume of entries because of the prize money on offer. This year there was a record 330,409 entries.

Wading their way through the entries were judges Vincent Fantauzzo, who won last year’s prize, and Christopher Menz, the acting director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art in Melbourne.

They selected Rice for a work titled Self-Portrait (with the Muses of Painting and Poetry), a moody work painted in a dark palette on light-absorbing black velvet.

Runners up prizes of $10,000 were also awarded to Natasha Bieniek, who last week won the $50,000 Metro Art Prize, and Michael Peck.

At the same time, the winners of the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize were announced. In an unusual move, judge Graham Howe chose to award the prize equally to four artists, Jacqui Stockdale, Tobias Titz, Ashleigh Bradley and Kelsey Austin Walsh. Each wins $25,000.

The award exhibition is on view in Sydney at 13-15 Bridge Street for the next 12 weeks. Rice will also stage a solo exhibition with Sophie Gannon Gallery and Jan Murphy Gallery at the Melbourne Art Fair from 1 to 5 August 2012.